suffragettes

suffragettes American and British women campaigning for the right of women to vote. In Britain, the suffragettes from the Women's Social and Political Union led by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst advocated civil disobedience to further their cause, as opposed to the suffragists from the law-abiding National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. After several government attempts to introduce limited female suffrage, the suffragettes became more violent, in 1912 resorting to arson, for example. In 1913, the suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under the King's horse at the Derby and was killed. By contrast, the National American Woman Suffrage Association under the leadership of Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919) and Carrie Chapman Catt, which had emerged in 1890 from the fusion of the American Suffrage Association and the National Association for Woman Suffrage founded two decades earlier, refused to engage in such violent methods. Nevertheless, in both the USA and Britain it was only partly the suffragettes' efforts, and partly the women's vital contribution to World War I, which persuaded the government to grant female suffrage. British female suffrage was granted to women over 30 in 1918, and extended to women over 21 in 1928. In the USA, women were enfranchised through the 19th amendment to the constitution, adopted in January 1918 and coming into force on 28 August 1920.

women emancipation of